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[DG]

Yes the secret chamber rating is strange. I would probably buy it more often then harvest, I get more coins from it than harvest, it costs much less than harvest, you have more control of the deck with secret chamber, plus you can have some fun with the reaction. Then again harvest isn't particularly good.

[Tables]

I would probably buy it more often then harvest, I get more coins from it than harvest...

Oh really? Harvest typically gives on average a little more than $2 earlygame, and around $3 midgame. I find it hard to imagine Secret Chamber giving even that much except in the rare engine built around it.

[DG]

Yes. I don't consider secret chamber to be a 'rare' engine payload card since you can instantly convert a common engine characteristic, strong drawing, into +coins. If you're buying a secret chamber to discard single cards then you're probably playing it wrong.

[SCSN]

Yes. I don't consider secret chamber to be a 'rare' engine payload card since you can instantly convert a common engine characteristic, strong drawing, into +coins. If you're buying a secret chamber to discard single cards then you're probably playing it wrong.

You must be building really crappy engines if you use SC as a payload card more than rarely, because unless you can redraw what you discard (which is only really viable with Scrying Pool, it might be ok sometimes with Library but meh, certainly not Watchtower), which is possible only rarely, you're effectively converting the cards you draw into Coppers, which is pretty awful even for a weak engine.

[SirPeebles]

Yes. I don't consider secret chamber to be a 'rare' engine payload card since you can instantly convert a common engine characteristic, strong drawing, into +coins. If you're buying a secret chamber to discard single cards then you're probably playing it wrong.

You must be building really crappy engines if you use SC as a payload card more than rarely, because unless you can redraw what you discard (which is only really viable with Scrying Pool, it might be ok sometimes with Library but meh, certainly not Watchtower), which is possible only rarely, you're effectively converting the cards you draw into Coppers, which is pretty awful even for a weak engine.

If you draw your entire deck, then you could discard all but one Cultist.  I really don't see how one would find themself in that predicament, though.

[markusin]

Yes the secret chamber rating is strange. I would probably buy it more often then harvest, I get more coins from it than harvest, it costs much less than harvest, you have more control of the deck with secret chamber, plus you can have some fun with the reaction. Then again harvest isn't particularly good.

Harvest isn't in the $1-$2 card list.

[DG]

You must be building really crappy engines if you use SC as a payload card

Why use anything else if secret chamber is the single highest coin producing card for you in the kingdom?

[SCSN]

You must be building really crappy engines if you use SC as a payload card

Why use anything else if secret chamber is the single highest coin producing card for you in the kingdom?

Because Adventurer is stronger still.

[DG]

Am I right in thinking that vault, storeroom, and secret chamber are the highest potential income actions in Dominion?

[dondon151]

Is Secret Chamber bad because Adventurer exists??? 

[SirPeebles]

Am I right in thinking that vault, storeroom, and secret chamber are the highest potential income actions in Dominion?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4374.0

Theoretically, Pirate Ship can surpass them.  Also, Band of Misfits can act as Pirate Ship, Storeroom, or Secret Chamber.

[markusin]

Am I right in thinking that vault, storeroom, and secret chamber are the highest potential income actions in Dominion?

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4374.0

Theoretically, Pirate Ship can surpass them.  Also, Band of Misfits can act as Pirate Ship, Storeroom, or Secret Chamber.

And Pirate Ship can also be KC'ed to give you the coins on all 3 plays.

[jsh357]

Merchant Guild is pretty good for getting a huge income, but by the time you could set it up the game's often over.

[michaeljb]

Merchant Guild is pretty good for getting a huge income, but by the time you could set it up the game's often over.

Merchant Guild and Pirate Ship (and therefore Band of Misfits) can both give unbounded income*, are there any others?

*edit: that is, only bounded by how many turns the player racking up the coins can take until they starve to death and take the loss, which I think was the official ruling from Donald X on hypothetical stalemate/unending-game situations

[florrat]

Merchant Guild and Pirate Ship (and therefore Band of Misfits) can both give unbounded income*, are there any others?

*edit: that is, only bounded by how many turns the player racking up the coins can take until they starve to death and take the loss, which I think was the official ruling from Donald X on hypothetical stalemate situations

How can a Merchant Guild give unbounded income? You can only have a bounded number of buys every turn (if I must guess around 400-500, let's be generous and say 1000), so you can at most get 1000 coin tokens per Merchant Guild per turn. If you mean you can stockpile coin tokens, then Candlestick Maker can also give unbounded income.

[michaeljb]

Yeah, I mean stockpiling. I guess that means all the coin token cards qualify.

The same thing applies to Pirate Ship; you have a bounded number of times you can play it each turn (unless there's some insane infinite loop possibility with King's Court, Procession, Graverobber, and Ambassador--what's Celestial Chamelon up to?), so to be able to have "infinite" income you need infinite turns.

The biggest difference is that spending MG's (and other coin token cards) infinite money is gone as soon as you spend it, while Pirate Ship's gets to stay.

[florrat]

The same thing applies to Pirate Ship; you have a bounded number of times you can play it each turn (unless there's some insane infinite loop possibility with King's Court, Procession, Graverobber, and Ambassador--what's Celestial Chamelon up to?), so to be able to have "infinite" income you need infinite turns.

No, the same does not apply to Pirate Ship. Originally you said it could give "unbounded income", which is something different than "infinite income". Pirate ship can give unbounded income (per play), but it cannot give infinite income (per play).

PS: 1000 buys might actually be achievable...

[michaeljb]

First, some math I did trying to work figure out our confusion. I'm not sure if it helps or is still worth posting so feel free to skip this part.

[math]
Let X be the maximum number of times you can play Pirate Ship in a turn. On your Nth turn, you could play a single Pirate Ship, choosing +Y coins. The maximum value for Y is X*N - 1; every time you played pirate ship, you took a coin token except for the time you chose to play it for +Y coins, which would be the last possible time you could play Pirate Ship on your Nth turn.

Let B be the maximum number of buys you can make on a turn (in a deck where you can reliably play all 10 Merchant Guilds). You've spent N-1 turns stockpiling Coin tokens from Merchant Guild, and you're going to use all of them on your Nth turn.  The maximum number of coins you can choose to spend on your Nth turn is B*10*(N - 1); on every turn before, you've had 10 Merchant Guilds in play and used all your buys (thanks to Trader and an empty Silver pile).

pirate ship max: X*N -1
merchant guild max: (N-1)*10*B

These maxes are of course still too high--when you're on the way to setting up perfect turns with max buys or max plays of pirate ship, you'll be taking far fewer coin tokens--but they're much easier upper bounds to calculate than the actual maxes.
[/math]

I think I figured out the confusion/miscommunication...

I didn't say "infinite" originally because that would require infinite turns or some crazy loop allowing you to Pirate Ship infinite times in one turn. "Unbounded" probably wasn't the right term either, since it is actually bounded by the number of turns taken before choosing to spend the coins.

It looks like maybe you were thinking of income from a single play of a card, while I was thinking of income from a card, allowing for the influence of previous turns (which I guess you pointed out when you brought up Candlestick Maker).

It seemed to me like you were pointing out that the growth of Merchant Guild's potential income was limited (which clearly does apply to Pirate Ship), not that you were saying a single Merchant Guild play could only get you so far (i.e., B is the important number, rather than (N-1)*10*B).

The post that started this discussion didn't strictly define "highest potential income actions", and I think we just took different angles at:

Am I right in thinking that vault, storeroom, and secret chamber are the highest potential income actions in Dominion?

Sorry for misunderstanding, and hopefully this long post didn't make it worse

[c4master]

Yes the secret chamber rating is strange. I would probably buy it more often then harvest, I get more coins from it than harvest, it costs much less than harvest, you have more control of the deck with secret chamber, plus you can have some fun with the reaction. Then again harvest isn't particularly good.

Secret Chamber would only generate more money, if you can discard a lot of crappy cards. So how can you get more than 3-4 crappy cards like estates, curses or ruins together with a secret chamber? The thing is: Any money card gives you at least as much dollars if you don't discard it. Harvest discards neither of those, so you actually add up to $4 to what you already have got in your hand. Secret chamber adds only $1 for each non-money-card in your hand.
If there is a way to reliably hold a secret chamber and more than 4 other cards, then secret chamber was actually good. Except for very rare cases (Tactician, for example), there is no such possibility (Vagrant --> sounds like a nombo).

For the reaction part, I think it is better than given credit for. Obviously it counter any top-deck-attacks like Swindler, Thief or Jester. But it also slightly counters hand sice reducers. Being militiad with a secret chamber allows me to chose 3 cards out of 7, effectively. Of course, one of those is secret chamber itself, but the attack really doesn't hurt as much. If your two top-deck-cards a relatively weak, the attacks let's you sift them.
As far as cursers are concerned, it really only helps against Sea Hag (let's you skip one bad card). Against Mountebank, at least, it raises chances to hit a curse and replace it, so that you don't get junked too fast. Still, not very smart as a defense.

I still don't think, it is a good card, but better than duchess, for sure.

[florrat]

@michaeljb: You're right, we took different angles at it. I was indeed using "income" as "max number of coin (tokens) per play."

[hsiale]

Secret Chamber would only generate more money, if you can discard a lot of crappy cards. So how can you get more than 3-4 crappy cards like estates, curses or ruins together with a secret chamber? The thing is: Any money card gives you at least as much dollars if you don't discard it.

Playing a money card means you get no further use out of it this turn (except Black Market/Mandarin shenanigans). Discarding it to Secret Chamber means you can still redraw it and play later. Secret Chamber can be really good in an engine that draws whole deck with ease and can do it again after you discard most of your hand for cash. And it sometimes can help this engine (activating Menagerie for example).

[Qvist]

Part 2

[Awaclus]

Stonemason is criminally underrated on this list.

[silverspawn]

yea stonemason is definitely underrated. i don't think its #1 or anything, but it needs to be at least 3 ranks higher

[Awaclus]

yea stonemaison is definitely underrated. i don't think its #1 or anything

I do.